Halo: Nomenclature
by FDC BUZZSAW
Summary: Halo: Nomenclature is a story about two young ODSTs, Master Sergeant October Lott, and Staff Sergeant Sebastian Sims. Together, along with other ODSTs and Commander Eric Brown (Nomenclature's CO) and his bridge crew, they will fight the Covenant war machine. Set between 2536-2552. A few planets are of my own creation.


Chapter 1

February 25th, 2536. 836 hours. (Earth Time)

Babylon, Muslani Al System.

UNSC Cruiser _Nomenclature_. In orbit.

Twenty-year old master sergeant October Lott strode along the boring-looking corridor. Her standard combat boots clicking on the metal floor, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She has slightly tanned skin, and green eyes. She passes a few soldier who give her a salute out or respect.

_Maybe they saluted me out of fear. _She mused inside her head.

October was an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, or ODST. She is part of the Special Forces section of the UNSC Marine Corps. ODSTs are usually feared by those not among their ranks, because to be an ODST, people thought they had to be crazy. ODSTs are dropped onto a planet, from orbit, in small, claustrophobic pods with little protection from the heat of an atmosphere aside from their pods' ceramic armor. The ODSTs were referred to as "Helljumpers" for when they are going down onto a planet, they are literally jumping feet first into Hell. October had signed up to be one to follow in her father's footsteps. Her father was the now famous Lieutenant Nicholas Lott, who was famous for saving all of the civilians from a burning hospital on Meletis II while the Covenant burned the entire planet until it was just a smoldering ball of glass against an endless black blanket. He had received the UNSC's highest award, the Colonial Cross.

October smiled while she remembered the day he was given the prestigious award. She passed through a set of pressure doors and was now heading straight down the hall towards the briefing room, where she'll meet with the _Nomenclature's _commanding officer, Commander Eric Brown, and the person in charge of all the ground forces on the ship, Major Alex Nelson. She presented her credentials to the marine armed with an MA5B assault rifle who guarded the door. He confirmed it was indeed her and let her in the door. As October walked in she was surprised to see three men instead of two sitting around a long, rectangular, dark wood table. At the head was Commander Eric Brown. He was wearing his naval uniform and kept raking his hand through his thinning silver hair. Sitting to his left was Major Alex Nelson who was in his dress uniform, which was covered in campaign ribbons, and two purple hearts. His hair was brown and his eyes blue. Sitting to Brown's right was October's lifelong friend and fellow ODST, Sergeant Sebastian Sims. Sebastian has been friends with October since they were children back on Harvest, their home planet, which is now just a floating ball of glass. Sebastian had pale skin, dark hair, green eyes and he was still trying to grow out of his freckles, even though he was the age of twenty-four. His father, like October's, is an ODST and was best friends with Nick. He is Staff Sergeant Andrew Sims, both him and October's dad were stationed on the colony of New Constantinople.

"Hey, October." Sebastian greeted her in his usual fast-speaking manner.

"Hey, they called you here too?" she sat beside him, "This must be big."

"Yes. Yes it is." Brown answered her. He motioned to Major Nelson, "Major, if you'd please brief them on the developing situation and what we are going to do about it."

Nelson got up out of his seat and paced around the table to the opposite end of which Commander Brown was seated. He opened up a small, old fashioned manila file folder and set out a few documents. He activated the small holo-projector in the center of the table. October and the others immediately recognized it as the sixth moon of this planet, codenamed GUARDIAN by the UNSC. Commander Brown reached in his cargo pants pocket and took a long sip from a metallic flask. He returned it to the pocket.

"We have detected something very, very disturbing on this moon." Nelson read from the open file. "As you know, this system and this planet are the next most likely targets of the next Covenant assault. We sent out a PROMETHEUS-class spy drone and we found this."

The image of the moon zoomed in, revealing the huge Acacia trees, a small river, and a surprise to October and Sebastian, a large, purple colored structure. A Covenant base.

"Is… Is that what I think it is?" Sebastian asked.

"I'm afraid so, son." answered Brown. "The Covenant have a base, more than likely, a listening post, on that moon."

"Correct." the Major said. "We have no intelligence on how long it has been here, but what we do know is why it's here and what it is supposed to do. This base is used by the Covenant to monitor our troop and ship deployment here and to alert the nearest fleet of theirs when they should attack us. We cannot have that happen. So, I have devised a plan of attack."

"Attack, sir?" Sebastian nervously asked. It was normal to be nervous. October was too, so was every single enlisted Marine, Army, and Naval personnel. They were fighting off an alien alliance hell-bent on destroying humanity.

"Correct, sergeant. You and Miss Lott here will lead two five-man squads down to the surface and assault the enemy position." Major Nelson informed them, he proceeded to go to the next image in his presentation. The holo-projection of GUARDIAN changed to a small field, a clearing about five-hundred kilometers away from the Covenant structure. "This will be your landing zone. The _Nomenclature _will move into position in two hours. You are required to have your helmet recorders turned on all throughout the mission as per ONI directive 90089, just in case you come face to face with new Covenant species and or technology. Are we clear?"

"Crystal, sir." October replied. She meant it too. She already knew of directive 90089. All ground troops did ever since a squad of marines recorded an unknown species that was made up of orange eel-like tentacles and was covered in thick armor that could withstand .50 caliber rounds back in 2529 on Setessae. These creatures were then named "Hunters" because they always traveled in pairs of two and were only sent when the UNSC was really annoying the Covenant's higher up officers.

"Get prepped now and take any equipment needed. You will dropped in at approximately ten-fifty-six hours. Go to the pod bay now. Dismissed." Major Nelson said.

October and Sebastian both got up and exited the room at the same time. They both traveled down the corridors, speaking of their past battles and their childhood on Harvest. October finally noticed how Sebastian was dressed. He had returned from his leave on planet and was still dressed in his civilian clothes. He had on a faded black band T-shirt with the word "Ludo", an old band from the twenty-first century, written in bright red, a pair of dark blue jeans and a blue pair of the old fashioned high top Converse shoes. In his right ear was a single black stud.

"I was afraid to say this back there," Sebastian began, "but two five-man squads, a total of ten men against that base where we have no idea how many Covenant are inside, that's a suicide mission!"

_He's right. Why didn't I see it? _She asked herself. "Don't worry, Sebastian I'm sure they'll have some kind of support on task for us. Plus, this is probably a stealth mission. So pack some C-12."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You know I hate it when you address me as a superior officer." October reminded her friend yet again.

"Sorry. It's an instinct. You're a Master Sergeant and I'm just a plain Sergeant. It's hardwired in my brain." he answered her.

"I know. Just try to suppress it around me." she looked at him. "And that's an order."

He chuckled as they entered the elevator and rode it to D-deck, where the armory and pod bay were located. They entered the armory to see eight other people already inside.

"They're probably our squads, probably already been briefed too." Sebastian said.

October nodded. "I'm off to get my gear prepped. I'll see you in a bit."

She left him and headed to the ODST lockers. She found hers, keyed in her unlock code, and retrieved the skin tight, jet black body suit that was part of the ODST armor. She shredded her clothing and worked herself into it. After making sure it was sealed properly, October began mounting the armor pieces to it. She started with the shoulder guards and strapped them perfectly. Next was her upper arm and forearm pieces. She finished it off with securing her metallic boots. She was now fully covered in armor and she grabbed her helmet. The helmet is what truly made ODSTs stand out. It covered the wearer's entire head and face in a comfortable metallic shell and a protective glass visor, the helmet protected them from small ballistics and heat. The whole suit also had temperature control and a layer of body molding gel that kept the person in the armor comfortable. October slid the helmet over her head and used her chin to activate her heads-up-display and ran the diagnostics for her helmet systems. She went through the checklist in her head.

Comms? _Check. _Ammunition counter? _Check. _Mini-map? _Check. _And so on and so forth. She checked everything off mentally and her helmet was fully functioning. She slid it back off and held it under her arm. She then made her way to the weapon lockers. Unlocking them she chose her loadout for this mission. She chose the standard MA5B assault rifle with a threaded barrel for her suppressor, which she tucked into her ballistic vest of her armor. She slid in an extended sixty round magazine of 7.62x39mm bullets and made sure the safety was on; after doing so she filled all of her six vest pockets with the standard thirty-two round magazines. She attached the rifle to her back with magnetic straps. October then chose her sidearm, a suppressed M6C magnum, which she loaded with its twelve round magazine of .45 caliber rounds. She decided to fill her two pistol mag pouches with one magazine each. After her primary and secondary weapons were chosen and secured to her armor, she attached four grenades to her belt. Two fragmentation grenades and two flashbangs. Lastly she placed a single block of C-12 plastic explosive on her lower back.

Her loadout selected, her armor correctly attached, and her helmet in working order, she began to move to the other ODSTs in the armory. All of which were wearing the same armor as her. She strode over to them and asked.

"Who out of you all is assigned to me, Master Sergeant Lott?"

Four of them raised their hands, two males, and two females.

"Alright, tune your HUD to my frequency. Frequency eight." She ordered them.

She slid her helmet back on and read off the names of each soldier she was in charge of. Private Jessie Scrod, a small framed but muscular woman who was about five feet eight inches tall. Private Andre Moore, a very muscular African American who was six feet even and bore a scar right above his right eye. Next was Corporal Hank Gillard, a nimble white man who October couldn't believe that he passed ODST training, what she didn't know though was that he was a crack shot with the SRS99C sniper's rifle and could take the hat off any Covenant soldier at three thousand yards. Lastly was October's second in command, Sergeant Tristin Rose. She was one of the veteran ODSTs, like October, on the _Nomenclature _and could be counted on in any firefight. October assed them all, used her rank to get in and read some of their files in the UNSC data base and was pleased. Hank was plenty capable with a sniper so she assigned him to be the squad's sharpshooter. Andre was a close quarters combat expert, she assigned him a suppressed M7 submachine gun and a M90 tactical combat shotgun. Jessie and Tristin both were capable of anything, according to their files, October decided to assign them both with MA5B assault rifles that could be fitted with suppressors, like her own. She checked the tim uo in the top right corner of her heads-up-display.

Ten-fifty. _Time to go._ she thought. She led her team out of the armory and down to the pod bay. Sebastian and his team right behind them.

February 25th, 2536. 10:56 hours. (Earth Time)

Babylon, Muslani Al System.

ODST drop pod, streaming right down to GUARDIAN's surface.

October felt the heat rising all around her. The moon's atmosphere was heating up her pod and thrashing her all about inside. She steeled her nerves and opened up a team-com to her squad.

"Status?" she asked them all.

"I'm getting a little cooked, ma'am, but I'm good." Hank replied in a southern Reach accent.

"I'm about the same as you all." Jessie reported.

"A-Okay." came from Tristin's mic.

"I'm losing her!" yelled Andre through the com network. "I can't deploy my chute! I'm going to cra-"

October looked out her pod's semi-polarized windshield and saw Andre's pod crash. Hard into a huge Acacia tree and his transponder vanished. Hers and the rest of her squad's pods all safely deployed their chutes and landed with several thuds in the clearing, only a few yards away from each other. Her pod's door flew off its hinges with a sudden burst of strong, pressured air. Her rifle already to her shoulder and her hand racking the charge handle, sending a round into the gun's chamber. Her squad mates did the same.

"Area secured, ma'am." Tristin reported.

"Form up on me." October commanded. She looked to the burned, smoking husk of Andre's drop pod. Another life lost due to a technology malfunction. There was always at least one death because of a drop pod crash.

_Always one…_ she thought.

Moments later Sebastian's group of pods descended down from the sky and landed around them. They all made it and soon the nine ODSTs were all in standard march formation, heading towards the Covenant base. The mission had officially started.

Twenty minutes later…

The two ODST squads were only three kilometers away. All were quiet, they were not allowed to make any noise, use any kind of radio. Just in case the Covenant were listening in. October ordered Sebastian's squad to stay back while hers moved forward, hoping to get a better look at the encampment ahead.

October used her hand to signal Hank to climb up in the nearest Acadia tree to keep them covered with his SRS99C sniper's rifle. She took point, already having the suppressor already attached to her weapon, Tristin and Jessie followed suit and crept behind her. She signaled for them to drop to their stomachs and crawl along the ground. She held up a fist, the signal to stop. Ahead of them, blocking their path to their objective was a squad of Jackals. The Covenant creatures were bipeds, about five feet and six inches tall and had very vulture like heads and thin, wispy spines protruding out of their heads and elbows. There were five of them in all. Each armed with an energy shield gauntlet and plasma pistol. October took aim with her rifle, at the knees of the aliens. She pulled the trigger and the weapon made silent burps as the 7.62mm rounds flew through the barrel and suppressor. The bullets tearing through flesh and bone, destroying the nerve endings and rendering the jackals' immobile; her two squad mates did the same. Five down already. She heard the sound of hank's suppressed sniper rifle and a large purple lump thudded to the ground. A dead Elite, the superior warrior class of the Covenant.

Elites were also biped but had backwards knees and their jaws split into four different mandibles.

_This is going easy so far._ October said in her head. Off in the distance was an explosion. A large one. A giant fireball erupted into the sky and the ODSTs saw it from their positions. Next came the low hum of anti-gravity generators. The comms then went crazy in October's ear.

"What was that?'

"Look! Up there! Up there!"

"Is that a supercarrier?!"

"When did that get there?"

October shut off all communications except for her squad. She gave the order to retreat. A giant ship, over five kilometers long, had materialized above them. It started raining down pure hell-fire with its energy and laser weapons.

"Major Nelson, anyone on the Nomenclature, do you copy?" October ran ahead of her team out of instinct, the bushes and trees were starting to catch fire and burn around them. "We need emergency evac at the LZ ASAP! A Covenant supercarrier has jumped to the moon. Over."

The alien craft moved like a shark, opening it's hangers like jaws and sending in single manned fighters to attack the humans.

"Miss Lott, this is Commander Brown. We are sending pelicans to evacuate you all back to the Nomenclature. We're engaging the enemy ship now."

"Roger sir. Please hurry." October begged.

Above them, exhaust from the _Nomenclature's_ archer missiles and struck the enemy ship. It returned fire and melted through armor and decks, sending debris raining down to the forest. The _Nomenclature _fired its two MAC guns, sending two six hundred ton white-hot projectiles at just below the speed of light. They all impacted and made the alien craft jump out of the system.

Two pelican dropships came into view, and started landing. The ODSTs filed into the landing craft and they took off back to the _Nomenclature. _October, her squad, Sebastian, and two of his teammates made it out alive. Now they had to prepare top try and repel the Covenant away from the main planet. Babylon.


End file.
